Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/195

FAREWELL T0 SOUTH AFRICA 105 within. Zealously remove all causes which we may have given for the rise and growth of anti·Indian preju- dice or agitation, and patiently cultivate and inform European opinion so as to enable the Government of the day and legislature to restore to us our rights." It is by mutual co-operation and goodwill that the solution ofthe balance of the pressing disabilities which were not made points for Passive Resistance may be obtained in the natural course, and without trouble or agitatim in an acute form. The presence of a large indentured and ex·indentur- ed Indian population in Natal is a grave problem. Compulsory repatriation is a physical and political impossibility, voluntary repatriation by way of granting free passages and similar inducements will not-as my experience teaches me-—he availed of to any appreciable extent. The only real and effective remedy for the great State to adopt is to face responsibility fairly and squarely, to do away with the remnant of the system of indenture, and to level up this part of the population and make use of it for the general welfare of the Union. Men and women who can effectively strike in large bodies, who can for a common purpose suffer untold hardships, who can, undisciplined though they are, be martyrs for days without police supervision and yet avoid doing any damage to property or person, and who can in times of need serve their King faithfully and capably, as' the ambulance corps raised at the time ofthe late war (and which had among other classes of Indians nearly 1,500 indentured indians) bore witness, are surely people who will, if given ordinary opportunities in life, form an honourable part of any nation,